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| A little Syrian girl peeks out from behind the curtain of her tent |
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| What a burnt out Syrian school bus looks like before it gets bombed |
So, for the last few years I’ve been feeling
really disillusioned about the church in the West. Because from where I’m
sitting, it looks to me like most of our Western churches care about things
like building bigger campuses, installing better sound systems and tossing a
few crumbs from our table to the poor when we feel guilty enough to do so. But
before you get your knickers in a twist and all offended. Relax. I know many incredible
pastors and churches - my Dad is pastor and not like this, our home church in
NZ is not like this and countless others are not like this. But many are.
And so for years as I’ve held the hands of mothers in refugee tents with tears running down their cheeks I’ve found myself repeatedly thinking, “Where the HECK is the church? Cause we sure aren’t here. And I am so deeply sorry that we have failed you. Our Western church has failed you miserably. We’ve done a little, we’ve done ok…. but it’s not nearly enough. So you can only imagine how happy my heart felt last week when I arrived in Lebanon and I saw the actual church. Hands and feet of Jesus stuff. Christopher Wright sums it up, “It is not so much the case that God has a mission for his church in the world as that God has a church for his mission in the world. Mission was not made for the church, the church was made for mission. God’s mission.”I don’t know about you, but for me, the Syrian refugee crisis has certainly captured my attention for the last four years. The chemical weapons attacks, the burnt out school buses and the images coming out of Aleppo are ones I can’t forget and so the opportunity to spend a week with the people who’ve escaped these horrors was one I would never miss. I’ve wondered what it was like for these people to be in a warzone. I‘ve wondered what life’s like for them now. I’ve wondered if the money we’ve sent got there and helped. This trip was the chance to answer those questions.
But first, a quick recap. Syria used to be a
country of 25 million people. But because of the war, 11 million have either
fled the country or been displaced within Syria. Most have gone via boat, bus,
foot and car to the borders of Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Iraq. Some have
resettled in Western countries. For this trip, I was in Lebanon. Lebanon is a
tiny country bordering Syria with 4.3 million people in it. But today, it has
an extra 1.5 million Syrian refugees living in it too.
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| 25 day old Amina sleeps in her Mums arms as they wait for a food box at the church |
If you’re a Kiwi, Lebanon is approximately the size of Northland. Can you imagine if 1.5 million people showed up there? How would the public health system fare? The transport system? Employment opportunities - especially when Syrians are willing to do your job for cheaper. This is part of the extremely complex nature of a refugee crisis. Although it is good and right that Syrians are able to come to Lebanon, the host country has a big job. Especially when a mere 12 years prior, the Syrian Army had just ended its 29-year occupation of Lebanon.
To now see Syrians turning around and knocking on
their doors for help was an ironic twist of events. Many Lebanese—including
church pastors—felt fear and hatred towards them. But as they chose faith over
fear they began reaching out and providing food, blankets and support to their
once oppressors. I was reminded of a quote by Dorothy Day, “Love is a harsh and dreadful thing to ask of
us, but it is the only answer”.
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| Money that's been donated provides mattresses and blankets |
The Syrian refugee crisis is like nothing I’ve come across before, and quite frankly it messes with your mind. I think it was somewhere on the road between Beirut and the Syrian border where I found myself sipping on a Starbucks Frappuccino that I knew this trip was going to be way different.
In my job I get to meet a lot of refugees, from a lot of different crises and the environments we meet in are, for the most part, the same. Formal refugee settlements, accessed through a security team, white tents in rows, long lines for food, and tens of thousands of people crammed into a small space. UNHCR provides shelter, World Food Program provides food and other NGO’s chip in here and there to make life better. Lebanon is different.
For starters, there are no formal refugee camps.
So when a Syrian refugee crosses the border they are left with little other
options than to ‘rent a tent’ or rely on the kindness of a stranger to set up
some kind of shelter on their land and pay rent that way. If one particular
orchard owner allows it, you may see up to 15 or 20 tents on one piece of land.
These refugees also have to truck in their own water and provide for most of
their own food. They are unable to work legally and are encouraged to go back
as soon as they can. All very hard for a family who’ve just fled a war zone and
come with nothing.
But what messed with my mind the most was the
urban refugee situation. In central Beirut you’ll find hundreds of thousands of
Syrian refugees living in garages, unfinished buildings, back rooms and abandoned
houses. These refugees are given little to no assistance, are surviving hand to
mouth and yet could easily live next to a Dunkin’ Donuts. Lebanon is fondly called
the ‘Paris of the Middle East’ and so shops like H&M, Zara and Topshop sit
in malls next to buildings riddled with bullet holes (from the Lebanese civil war).
And inside those bullet-ridden buildings are, you guessed it, Syrian refugees
hanging out their washing. Some of the tents I visited were even using
billboards featuring ads for Pizza Hut or shampoo as the external covering of
their house. It is SO weird to interview someone about ISIS with a picture of a
mouth-watering pizza behind you. My two worlds collided. This isn’t how it was
supposed to look.
And don’t even get me started on the fact that our
field car was not the large white eight seater UNHCR vehicles I’m used to. Ours
was a Kia. The Syrian crisis was also the most personally challenging
environment I’ve ever had to photograph in because hardly anyone wants to show
their face for fear of serious repercussions. Faceless portraits are certainly
not an area of expertise for me.
But the coolest thing of all was that the ones
actually giving food to refugees were Syrian refugees now attending the church
and working peacefully alongside Lebanese locals. The dignity in that was
really beautiful. You see, many Syrians came from middle to upper middle class
backgrounds. But when bombs started hitting their towns and cities—they left
everything behind and ran. To humble
yourself to receive a food box or a blanket is hard. But knowing you have
nothing left to support your family as someone stole it or burnt it is harder.
The Syrian crisis has layers upon layers of
complexity woven through it and there are no easy answers. The geo-political
climate is a historical nightmare to wade your way through and the cultural
differences run deep. I don’t know much, but I do know that the Syrians I spent
time with were some of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. Survivors of a war
they want no part in. As my plane took off this verse was ringing in my heart. “Do you know what I want? I want justice –
oceans of it. I want fairness, rivers of it. That what I want. What I really
want.” Amos 5:24 Message Version
h.
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| I interviewed a 70 year old lady with a tattoo. She's got serious street cred in my books. #photoop |
